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Arapahoe High students look for hope with classmate in coma

By Jordan SteffenThe Denver Post

Posted:
12/15/2013 08:23:45 PM MST

Updated:
12/16/2013 10:00:36 AM MST

Arapahoe High School senior Melissa Tombaugh, 18, receives a comforting hug from her mother, Jeannette, as others look on at a display of support for shooting victim Claire Davis along Dry Creek Road near Arapahoe High School in Centennial. More than 1,000 students prayed for the recovery of Davis, who is in critical condition. (Photos by Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

Students at Arapahoe High School should have been studying for finals Monday, powering through their last week of classes before Christmas break.

Instead, authorities continue to walk the school's hallways, piecing together the 80 seconds that terrified a community and left Claire Davis in a coma, fighting for her life.

Davis remained in critical condition Sunday evening, according to a statement from her family, who praised first responders and asked the community to continue thinking of and praying for the 17-year-old.

Claire Davis (Provided by Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office)

The senior was shot point-blank in the head Friday after she found herself in the path of Karl Pierson, who had fired several random rounds in the hallway before he shot Davis. Pierson, an 18-year-old senior, stormed into the school at about 12:30 p.m., carrying a pump-action shotgun, a bandolier of ammunition, a machete and three Molotov cocktails.

Seconds later, Pierson turned the gun on himself. Officers found his body in a corner of the library.

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Pierson bought the shotgun days before, part of a plot to avenge a grudge he had against the school's librarian and debate coach, Tracy Murphy. Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson told The Post on Sunday that investigators have spoken with Murphy extensively and are working to understand the relationship between the two.

"We're beginning to better define that, but at this point in time it's not something we're going to talk about," Robinson said.

Robinson and Gov. John Hickenlooper have credited the swift response by a deputy sheriff working as the school's resource officer during the shooting.

"This could have been much, much worse," Hickenlooper told CBS's "Face the Nation."

Hickenlooper also visited Davis and her family Sunday.

"We all have to keep Claire in our thoughts and prayers," he said.

More than 1,000 of Davis' classmates and other community members gathered at the high school's track Sunday to pray for and support Davis. The crowd, huddled together in black and gold, came to offer prayers, give hugs and try to understand why.

"It helps to see everyone's faces, to give them hugs," 14-year-old freshman Nick Atencio said. "It still has all of us reeling. It's important that we all come together."

Students stood in groups, and when words failed, hugs were used instead. Parents also came together, holding back tears as they described the short, terrifying text messages their children sent them from inside dark, quiet classrooms.

For many parents, the messages that were sent to reassure them — "I'm OK," "We're hiding and waiting," "I love you" — turned into rattling uncertainty.

"It's going to be hard when we have to go back in there," Atencio said, staring at the entrance Pierson used Friday. "I don't know what to expect. But it's a step we're all going to have to take together."

Balloons and well-wishes for shooting victim Claire Davis, 17, are attached to a fence along Dry Creek Road near Arapahoe High School on Sunday.

School officials are working to set up times when students may come and collect their belongings.

But the trauma of Friday's shooting will reverberate long past when students return to school and beyond the school's walls, said Dr. David Schonfeld, director of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement in Philadelphia. Schonfeld traveled to Colorado to work with students after the 2006 shooting at Platte Canyon High School, during which 16-year-old Emily Keyes was killed, and the shootings at the Aurora movie theater, where a gunman killed 12 people and injured 70 others in July 2012.

Less than an hour's drive to the movie theater and just miles from Columbine High School, where two students killed 12 students and one teacher in 1999, the shooting at Arapahoe High School is likely to spark memories of trauma for those affected by past events. The emotional toll also may cause overwhelming feelings of grief for members of the community, Schonfeld said.

Students and staff members who were at the school Friday will experience a range of emotions, Schonfeld said. Many may begin to place blame on themselves, either for failing to stop the shooting or predict it.

"Whenever anything bad happens, people feel badly. But they also wonder what they did that was bad," Schonfeld said. "A lot of this comes from the sense that people would rather accept blame for what happened than to realize it's completely out of their control."

The Littleton Public School District has made counseling available for students.

On Sunday, students worked to comfort each other, including Davis.

Students hung a Christmas stocking for Davis and left notes at the tribute forming along the school's south fence. Their message — and hope — could be seen a block away.

Hundreds of Arapahoe High School students gathered for a candlelight vigil Saturday night to share their prayers for Claire Davis, who was shot inside the school Friday, Dec. 13, 2013. The vigil was held at Arapaho Park in Centennial, not far from the school. (Karl Gehring, The Denver Post)

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